Jacques Derrida is widely regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. His thinking has radically transformed scholarship and critical practice across the Humanities and Social Sciences. 'Derrida on Religion' offers students an overview of Derrida's many influential writings on religion and also explores the potential of Derrida's methodologies for the study of religion. This is an essential textbook for any student who wants to explore the impact of Derrida's critical theory and practice on the study of religion.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Jacques Derrida continues to be the world's single most influential philosophical and literary theorist. He is also one of the most controversial and most complex. His own works and critical studies of his work proliferate, but where can a student, utterly new to the work of Derrida, start? Understanding Derrida is written as an introduction to the full range of Derrida's key ideas and influences. It brings together the world's leading authorities on Derrida, each writing a short, accessible essay on one central aspect of his work. Framed by a clear introduction and a complete bibliography of Derrida's publications in English, the essays systematically analyze one aspect of Derrida's work, each essay including a quick summary of Derrida's books which have addressed this theme, guiding the student towards a direct engagement with Derrida's texts. The essays cover language, metaphysics, the subject, politics, ethics, the decision, translation, religion, psychoanalysis, literature, art, and Derrida's seminal relationship to other philosophers, namely Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, Hegel and Nietzsche.

This book is the first monograph that takes a comprehensive approach to Jacques Derrida as a philosopher of technology. It refines and complements his mainstream image as a philosopher of language and deconstructionist of classical literary and philosophical texts. This volume outlines the key features of Derrida’s alternative philosophy of technology, a philosophy which Sjöstrand argues, avoids the problems associated with, on the one hand, a Heideggerian orientation, which completely separates thinking and technology and, on the other, an empirically oriented ”post-phenomenology” that can be said to be hegemonic within the field today. Based on a sustained interpretation of Derrida, and a robust, coherent philosophy of technology, a phenomenology of technology is developed that, in a radical way, extends the concept of technology to cover the entire field of phenomenology. This places the technological not in opposition to humanity, but rather always already in close proximity to man and, consequently, to life, ethics, politics, democracy and religion. Strikingly, this important aspect of Derrida’s thinking is only rarely analyzed or discussed by his many exegetes. This text appeals to graduates and researchers working on Derrida, phenomenology, and the philosophy of technology.

The Prayer and Tears of Jacques Derrida takes its point of departure from Derrida's more recent, sometimes autobiographical writings and closely examines the religious motifs that have emerged in his later works. John D. Caputo's provocative interpretation of Derrida's thinking also makes an original contribution to the question of the relevance of deconstruction for religion. Caputo's Derrida is a man of faith who bridges Jewish and Christian traditions. The deep messianic, apocalyptic, and prophetic tones in Derrida's writings, Caputo argues, bespeak his broken covenant with Judaism. Through its startling exploration of Derrida's impossible religion, the book sheds light on the implications of deconstruction for an understanding of religion and faith today--from back cover.

This is an attempt to reflect on Islam as it appears in the context of Fethullah Gulen's teachings, an influential Turkish-Muslim scholar who inspired a movement of education and interfaith dialogue. Grinell's extensive study of Islam and of Gulen allows him to pinpoint a unique expression of values and beliefs that could alter the typical understanding of Islam and Muslims in the West. He draws upon his previous studies of the Gulen Movement and comparatively places Gulen in a wider context of faith and society. What is the concept of knowledge in Islam as understood by Gulen? How is faith and service to people connected? Is Gulen after building a sultanate? Does the Gulen movement have a (hidden) political agenda? How traditional or modern is Gulen? These are some of the questions Grinell attempts to answer from his perspective. As a humanistic researcher on Islam, Grinell believes we definitely have something to learn from Islam.

In the Name of Friendship: Deguy, Derrida and "Salut" centres on the relationship between poet Michel Deguy and philosopher Jacques Derrida. Translations of two essays, "Of Contemporaneity" by Deguy and "How to Name" by Derrida, allow Christopher Elson and Garry Sherbert to develop the implications of this singular intellectual friendship. In these thinkers’ efforts to reinvent secular forms of the sacred, such as the singularity of the name, and especially poetic naming, Deguy, by adopting a Derridean programme of the impossible, and Derrida, by developing Deguy's ethics of naming through the word "salut," situate themselves at the forefront of contemporary debates over politics and religion alongside figures like Alain Badiou and Jean-Luc Marion, John Caputo and Martin Hagglund.

Derrida and Theology is an invaluable guide for those ready to ride the leading wave of contemporary theology. It gives theologians the confidence to explore the major elements of Derrida's work, and its influence on theology, without 'dumbing it down' or ignoring its controversial aspects.

At the time of his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida was arguably the most influential and the most controversial thinker in contemporary philosophy. Deconstruction, the movement that he founded, has received as much criticism as admiration and provoked one of the most contentious philosophical debates of the twentieth century. Jacques Derrida: A Biography offers for the first time a complete biographical overview of this important philosopher, drawing on Derrida's own accounts of his life as well as the narratives of friends and colleagues. Powell explores Derrida's early life in Algeria, his higher education in Paris and his development as a thinker. Jacques Derrida: A Biography provides an essential and engaging account of this major philosopher's remarkable life and work.

death of Jacques Derrida in 2004 represented a major interruption in contemporary intellectual life. This death calls for an engagement with Derrida's work and an attempt to understand his legacy. Such a discussion is fraught with tension between remaining faithful after death and putting Derrida's writing to work in new directions, posing challenges and exposing limitations. In short this legacy is, necessarily, a negotiation. The aim of this book is to grapple with this specific theme and to explore the implications of Derrida's death for the future of critical thought itself. The authors demonstrate that there is no single way to adopt or inherit Derrida's thought. Rather, through their engagement with contemporary themes within Politics and International Studies, Philosophy, Literary Studies and Postcolonial Studies, each chapter illuminates the degree to which on-going reflection, radical critique, and above all radical self-critique are demanded by deconstruction. This book provides the key st